Amber Flame

by Caris Roane

  Fergus broke in with, Fuck.

  Mary continued, It gets worse. Sydon isn’t just a wolf anymore, he’s part warlock. He’s hooked up with the witch, Sandrine, and they’ve forged a bond. They’re working together to take over Savage.

  Holy fuck! The words carried so much resonance, Mary’s head rang. Fergus continued, Sandrine is one of the most powerful dark witches in Five Bridges. Are you sure?

  I saw her. She called Sydon ‘my love’. They’re in this together and Fergus, they plan to launch some kind of attack tonight. They’re calling it by a code name: Amber Flame Rising, and it’s slated to begin at nine o’clock.

  She went on to tell him about the monitors, the relief map, Sandrine’s addiction to amber flame, everything she could think of. The whole time, she could feel Fergus grow increasingly quiet.

  When she was done, she remained silent to let Fergus wrap his head around all that she’d told him.

  Finally, he responded. Jesus, it all makes sense now. Sandrine must have created the killing powder Sydon tried to use in the arena battle. And if what you’ve said about Harley is true, then he no doubt delivered the spelled substance to Sydon himself just before the last dominance match. But are you absolutely sure Sydon and Sandrine are a pair?

  I’m positive. They’re like you and me right now. Sandrine is part wolf and Sydon has taken on warlock qualities. They’re operating in tandem. I also think its possible Sydon, with Sandrine’s dark magic, has be-spelled significant wolves from every pack in Savage.

  Now that he knew all that she’d learned, he released a long string of hellish words. She couldn’t blame him, not one bit.

  Finally, he asked the most pertinent question. So where is Sydon’s headquarters?

  Below the Naked Wolf at the western end of Savage Strip.

  You’re sure?

  I am. One hundred percent.

  And you used your dreamglide to see all this?

  Yes, until Sandrine found me out.

  Even telepathically, she heard Fergus offer up a frustrated wolf grunt. Wait a minute. Are you saying she knew you were there?

  She did, so I left.

  Okay, whatever you do, don’t go back. I’ll come get you personally at nightfall, that is, if you want to come to me. Is that what you want?

  Absolutely. There was no doubt in her mind. Whatever her life was supposed to be, it would include Fergus and Savage Territory. Whether they would become a couple remained to be seen, but she was meant to be at the Gordion Compound, at least for the immediate future.

  Fergus ended the telepathic conversation shortly afterward. He would need to quickly pull all the pack alphas together in order to counteract Sydon’s plans for Savage.

  But as she sat on the couch, something nagged at her about Sydon’s HQ. She was certain about the location. That wasn’t the problem. Instead, her fae senses told her she’d missed something critical, a piece of information Fergus would need as he put together his battle plan.

  She felt a profound compulsion to go back. But returning to Sydon’s HQ, even in the dreamglide, would put her in harm’s way. Sandrine would be on the lookout for her and might have enough power to attack her through the veil of the dream-world reality.

  Mary felt dizzy. She’d never faced a situation like this before. She had a choice, a real one. And Fergus had already told her not to return.

  Yet if she didn’t go back, she sensed hundreds of wolves would die.

  She thought about contacting him again, but she already knew he would never allow her to put herself in danger. The decision had to be hers.

  But it only took her another minute of deliberation. She didn’t fully understand why her life had taken such a profound turn over the past couple of nights, yet it had, and she could never simply resume her former life. That meant doing what needed to be done where the coming attack was concerned.

  She would return to Sydon’s headquarters and if she was clever enough, she might even survive whatever the witch threw at her.

  She didn’t leave right away, however. Instead, she forced herself to grow very calm since her instincts told her something else. The longer she waited to return, the greater her chances of survival.

  ~ ~ ~

  Fergus showered and dressed for the night in fresh leathers and a black tank trimmed with amber and bearing the Gordion logo patch. As he put on his boots, a weight settled on his shoulders, something he’d never experienced before because it felt very fae.

  Mary’s news had confirmed his own growing concerns for Savage. He just never imagined the plot against the territory would be as involved as it was. But it definitely explained the uneasy sensation he’d had for days that Savage was on the brink of war. And if he hadn’t been sharing powers with Mary, he wouldn’t have had a clue that anything was wrong since it was his faeness that warned him of the looming disaster.

  As soon as Mary had described the monitors, the war room containing the digital relief map, and that Harley was contacting Sydon’s wolves one after the other, he understood the scope of Sydon’s plans.

  Savage was a hotbed of reactionary wolves. When Elena had killed herself, some of his wolves had gone berserk with rage and had attacked Sydon’s forces without weaponry of any kind. They’d been slaughtered as a result. But it was this kind of erratic, impulsive, and completely irrational behavior that occurred when war broke out, only on a much larger scale.

  Wolves only had to get their blood up and mayhem and death would follow. Mary’s sister, Alicia, had gotten killed as a result of wild, uncontrollable wolf reactions.

  A direct attack at the front of each pack compound would incite every pack to battle and violence. Blind instinct would follow and Fergus firmly believed an all-out war would ensue, which appeared to by Sydon’s ultimate goal.

  He’d seen it before when he’d first become alpha. A full territory war had broken out and had lasted for weeks. In the end the hellish conflict and had taken the lives of nearly a hundred Gordion wolves. The last thing he wanted was another similar, chaotic battle, each pack out for its own. Wolves from all the packs would get worked up beyond reason and indiscriminate killing would follow. The resulting death toll would be catastrophic across the board. He had no doubt hundreds of wolves would die, maybe thousands.

  What happened next was on him. But he needed to act fast and at the same time he had to be thorough.

  Mary’s safety was his first concern so he’d keep one eye on the arrival of dusk to make sure he was at her door the moment he could leave the compound. His next priority was to contact each of the pack alphas and to coordinate counter measures with them.

  Leaving his private rooms, he headed to the compound’s main entrance hall. With all the exterior windows shuttered against the bright June sunlight, he called his most powerful betas together, each of them an alpha-in-training.

  Fergus took a couple of minutes to engage his men individually. The alpha wolf in him demanded the contact. He either shook the beta’s hand or clapped him on the shoulder. He looked into each pair of eyes and let his new fae senses roll. He needed to know right now if he had enemies in the compound. The fate of Savage depended on the loyalty of his pack.

  Fortunately, what returned to him was that he could trust all the wolves in front of him. He sensed the depth of their loyalty to the Gordion pack, equal to his own.

  He also knew he had to act fast and get his bridges built by the time the sun set in the west. By his estimation, he had forty-five minutes.

  Ryan spoke up. “Where’s Harley?”

  “Glad you mentioned him. Here’s what we’ve got.” He spoke quickly and outlined everything Mary had told him.

  He felt a terrible shock settle over his wolves.

  “If Harley could be turned,” Ryan said, his voice little more than a growl, “then any of us could fall victim to Sydon and his witch.”

  “How they subverted Harley is unknown, but Mary saw him and he appeared to be drugged or possibly be-spelled.


  “More importantly, I believe Sydon and Sandrine have corrupted a specific wolf in each of the fifteen acknowledged Savage packs. They’ve siphoned off top men, probably without their knowledge, in order to learn critical details about the different pack compounds. Their plan appears to be as comprehensive as it is vile.”

  Ryan scowled. “But what do they want? What are they after?”

  “Sandrine has found a mate in Sydon. They’re bonded and her craving for power feeds off that. But she also craves chaos and murder. The dark witches are some of the most violent in all of Five Bridges. If they could get the packs stirred up, Sydon no doubt counted on our wolf volatility to dredge up old wounds and start battling each other. How many times has this happened in the past? Dozens.” The team around him nodded, each expression serious.

  “And Sydon?” Ryan asked. “What does he hope to gain? He can never be a recognized alpha, not after the stunt he pulled in the dominance battle.”

  “I have every conviction Sydon plans on gaining control of Savage through instigating a brutal war. We already know the cartels will back him so he’s well motivated and extremely well positioned to attempt a takeover of the entire territory.”

  “Then we need to bring him down.” Ryan’s voice had deepened and carried a lethal edge.

  Fergus nodded, a grimness filling his chest. “And we’re going to do just that.”

  He then laid out the first part of his strategy, to contact each of the pack alphas. They would let them know what was going on and have them figure out which of their beta-leaders was missing. These would be the wolves Sydon corrupted.

  Fergus said, “This will be the best way for me to confirm with the alphas that an attack is imminent. As soon as each has been alerted, we’ll prepare for the nine o’clock assault. I’ll want a team here to coordinate our attack on Sydon’s HQ. We’ll bring him to heel before he can do any more harm to our territory and with luck, we’ll avoid war in in Savage.”

  The wolves as one howled their approval.

  Immediately after, Ryan used his tablet and pulled up the central pack information, a series of files that came directly from the Savage Pack Council. “I’ve got the alphas and their phone numbers.”

  There were fifteen official packs that the council recognized and a number of rogue tribes. Fergus made the decision to limit the initial inquiry to only these fifteen. He ordered his men to divide up the list and contact each pack leader, adding he would talk to Warren himself.

  Not all the wolves were as adept at telepathy as Fergus was and distance could definitely prove a difficult obstacle to overcome. So most would use their phones. He thought it possible some of the devices might be bugged, but that was a risk worth taking with less than an hour to avert disaster.

  For the next few minutes, the wolves chose which pack to contact. Afterward, each man went to a different part of the room to make his call. It didn’t take long for the space to hum with the sound of so many rough wolf voices on their cell-phones. For that reason, many of the wolves moved into the adjoining hallway.

  Fergus focused his attention on Warren and tapped on his telepathy.

  It took some time to wake him up and Warren responded exactly as Fergus expected him to. Fergus, what the hell are you doing disturbing my beauty sleep?

  In any other circumstance, Fergus would have laughed because Warren was poking fun at his scars. But not this evening. We’ve got a situation. Sydon’s primed for a takeover. The bastard brought in a witch.

  ~ ~ ~

  Mary sat on the couch sweating. Short of sitting on her hands to keep from moving, she’d done everything she could to delay her return in the dreamglide to Sydon’s HQ.

  When the need to get going became an overwhelming pressure within her chest, she stretched back down on the couch and created her dreamglide.

  Her heart pounded as she focused on Sydon and Sandrine. Even then, she could feel that she’d put on the brakes. The fae part of her knew she was placing herself in jeopardy and didn’t want to move forward. Once more, she had a prescience that her activities were going to bring her smack up against death itself.

  Still, it was a job that had to be done. She needed to find out exactly what she’d missed the first time around that would place Fergus or any of his men in danger.

  Putting the dreamglide in motion, she sped in a southwesterly direction. As she drew close to Sydon’s HQ once more, she stalled out. For a moment her courage flagged and her dreamglide sat just outside the suite of offices. She took several deep breaths, gave herself a strong talking-to, then pushed within.

  She kept the dreamglide close to the tall ceiling as she piloted it toward the map room. She moved swiftly, hoping to avoid Sandrine’s detection.

  She sped all the way to the large war room, the one at the end with the digital relief map. Her instincts took her to the far wall and a door. Several bolts sealed the door shut. She glided through and found a stairwell blocked by what even she could see was a large bomb.

  At the top of the stairwell, was another door.

  Well, look who’s back? Now you’re not planning on warning anyone about this, are you? It’s our little failsafe.

  Mary recognized Sandrine’s voice. She immediately tried to leave her dreamglide but couldn’t. Sandrine already had hold of the dream-world vehicle and was pulling it toward her.

  The next thing Mary knew she’d lost complete control of her dreamglide and Sandrine was taking her swiftly through the main suite of rooms. She couldn’t even leave the dream-world.

  She knew she had only seconds before she’d fall under Sandrine’s spell. Fergus, she cried out desperately. Can you hear me?

  The response was instantaneous. Yes, but you sound like you’re in a tunnel. Oh, shit, Mary what have you done?

  I’m in the dreamglide in Sydon’s headquarters. Explosives. Southwest entrance, with a spell. Did you hear me? Fergus?

  But nothing returned.

  Fergus. Explosives. Southwest door. Fergus!

  Still, nothing.

  She could only hope her message got through.

  Sandrine brought the dreamglide to Sydon’s desk. “We have a visitor, my darling. It seems Fergus’s fae lover has returned in her dreamglide.”

  Sydon looked up, one brow raised indifferently. “Can you bring her to earth?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then do it because as you can see I’m a little busy.”

  Sandrine turned toward Mary and smiled. She floated in a slow circle around the entire circumference of the dreamglide. As she moved, Mary’s thoughts grew loose and distant.

  When Sandrine closed the circle, the dreamglide fell hard to the stone floor at Sandrine’s feet as though wrecked.

  Mary lay prone in the dreamglide as well and she grew dizzier with each passing second, though she could hear Sandrine on her phone.

  “I want you over at Mary Somers’s house, the one on the street that backs up to the Graveyard. Yes, the veterinarian. You’ll find her on her couch. I want her transported immediately to Sydon’s HQ. If you value your lives, you’ll be quick about it. Oh, and shoot her up with amber.” There was a pause, then a snap to the witch’s voice. “Yes, you heard me right. Flood the bitch with amber flame.”

  Mary processed these words and finally realized that Sandrine had called for a physical pick-up at Mary’s home. Since it was still light out, she could only suppose that Sandrine and Sydon had humans in their employ.

  Her last thought, before she passed out, was an awareness she’d be shot up again with drugs. Last time it had been dark flame. But this time, it would be with the horrendous amber flame, a substance used to tame female wolves who worked in the Savage Strip sex clubs.

  ~ ~ ~

  Fergus stood very still at the head of the table in his strategy room. He was surrounded by his team, but had never felt more isolated or alone than from the moment he’d lost contact with Mary.

  She’d provided extremely valuable information with her warning a
bout explosives at the southwest entrance and had probably just saved dozens if not hundreds of lives because of it.

  But had she lost her own in the process?

  He tried repeatedly to reestablish contact with her, but couldn’t. Was she being silent in order to protect herself or had something else happened?

  As the minutes passed, he grew increasingly uneasy that he couldn’t reach her. By the time dusk was falling, he was on a group communication with the alphas from the remaining fourteen packs. Each would protect his pack and keep his wolves from going war-mad, while Fergus would take a team to Sydon’s HQ as soon as full-dark arrived.

  When at last the automatic steel shades came up, he glanced out at the dark night sky. He tried reaching Mary again, both telepathically and through her dreamglide, but got no response.

  Because of his fae senses, he knew she was no longer in her home and that she’d been unable to escape Sydon’s HQ. He sent his squad over to her house anyway, just in case he was misreading the signals.

  Ryan reported back two minutes later. “When we arrived, the front door was off its hinges and Mary was nowhere to be seen. But there’s more. We found a syringe reeking of amber flame on the floor next to the couch. We’ve searched the house. Mary’s gone.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FERGUS GREW VERY still. He tried to reach Mary a couple more times, but nothing returned. His fae senses confirmed what he already knew, that Sydon had sent humans to shoot Mary up with amber flame and drag her out of her home.

  The war room disappeared from his vision and every one of his wolves fell silent.

  He heard only the sound of his rough breathing, which came out in short gusts, like intermittent gunfire.

  Mary was gone, taken by a monster.

  He could hardly think, and he sure as hell didn’t know what to do. Only one thing became clear to him. He had to get Mary back. But how?

  He felt his neck arch and knew he was close to letting loose with an agonized howl. But he couldn’t do that right now, not in front of his pack.

  He contacted Warren telepathically and let him know what had happened. Warren already knew that Mary had gone back a second time in her dreamglide to gather the information about the bomb.